Matt Dale believes the feature race at Canberra on Friday is wide open and expects his galloper Shoot Thru Blu to be right in the mix.
The four-year-old drops in grade after a solid effort in a Saturday meeting at Hawkesbury when finishing fourth, beaten 2½-lengths to the Steve Englebrecht trained Malavio.
“Obviously he performed well and wasn't beaten far to a pretty smart horse that will probably start favourite in Sydney on Saturday,” Dale said.
Shoot Thru Blu has won three times at his home track of Thoroughbred Park, but Friday's race will be the first time since his maiden win on debut at the start of this season that he has competed on the synthetic Acton Track.
Add to that the significant drop in grade from his latest effort at Hawkesbury has Dale confident the Murphy's Blu Boy gelding will be fighting out the finish.
“They're all things that are going to help him, but it looks to be a hotly contested race,” said the Canberra trainer.
“It's a strong enough field, albeit he does drop in grade from a Saturday metro grade to this, but a few of the horses are in some good form.”
The four-year-old is yet to win a race over 1080m, and will race over the 1206m journey in Friday's Benchmark 70 Handicap.
Dale points out that despite having yet to place over the trip from two starts, the Murphy's Blu Boy gelding has still finished a respectable fourth in each outing.
“The other day he was still hitting the line over the distance at Hawkesbury and at Canberra on Black Opal day he got taken on in front very heavily,” said Dale.
“I think the 1200m is not a problem, there have just been circumstances when he's been beaten over it.”
Brendan Ward, who has a perfect record aboard Shoot Thru Blu (2-2-0) will take the reins of the four-year-old and with the pair to jump from barrier six.
Dale expects his galloper to sit just off the pace of the leaders and mount a challenge in the home straight.
“Being a few runs in to the preparation he's losing a little bit of his speed so he'll take a sit in what looks to be a decent pace and hopefully have a nice crack at them,” he said.
“He's probably towards the end of his preparation now, so this will probably be his last run before he goes for a break.”
Shoot Thru Blu has been in consistent form this campaign, having saluted the judge on three occasions and finishing fourth in his remaining three efforts.
